Background- I’m still new to smoking/traeger. I have a pro 22. I’ve used it about 4 times. Never had much ash after use so I’ve just been replacing foil on the drip pan and cleaning the grills.
TL/DR:
Tried to get my smoker going while distracted on a conference call and epically failed involving a runaway burn and 🔥 everywhere. Nobody hurt but my pride.
Yesterday I started up the smoker, but I’m still working and on a conference call so I’m a bit distracted and rushing. I figured I’ve never had much ash so I didn’t bother checking and was lazy so I didn’t replace the foil on the drip tray. After a few minutes I came back and didn’t see much smoke but it had been on for maybe 10 mins so I close the lid. Come back after another 10 and it’s pretty low temp still and not much smoke if any at all. At that point I just turn it to 225 and assume it’ll catch up. But I keep an eye on things and nothing seems to be happening. Go out and the temp is pretty low still so I put it back on smoke thinking maybe it hadn’t started up enough and open the lid to avoid the dreaded smoke bomb. At this point it’s hovering around 88* and I’m frustrated and I think I’ve closed the lid at this point. Then get an error code that I look up and it says that when it’s below 150* or something for more than 10 mins it auto shuts off. The instructions say to turn it off and unplug it for 10 seconds then start up as normal. I do that and it starts and gets to smoking as normal! Yay problem solved! …yeah right… I set it to 225 and go in to get the meat ready. I check on in in another few mins and it says 380 or something which was concerning since it was set to 225. Figured maybe it spiked a little because of all of the back and forth I was doing and maybe the fire pot had more pellets than it should. The temp just kept going up so I turned it down to smoke and opened the lid. I saw flames below the drip tray and within a few second they were coming up and set the old foil on fire since it still had some drippings. Immediately turned it on shut down mode and let the whole thing die down.
Afterwards I took the whole thing apart and vacuumed out all the ash and what not and cleaned it all up. I noticed that the paint in a few places had pealed off. So clearly it had gotten very hot if it was hot enough to damage the high temp paint.
Writing this out helped me work through what I think I did wrong but please let me know what your thoughts are.
1 – I should at least check on the ash before every use if not actually vacuum it out every time.
2 – replace the foil every time so there isn’t any extra grease to fuel any flare ups.
3 – I think the pot must have been clogged or something so the initial startup never really got going. When I turned it to 225 before it was really started up I probably flooded the fire pot with pellets that eventually all lit and caused it to flame and spike the temp. So if in the future it doesn’t start up properly just stop what I’m doing and check the fire pot to make sure it’s not clogged or flooded.
4 – Now I know that if it stays low for too long it will auto shut off. That’s a sign to do what I mentioned above and check on things.
5 – I learned that even though pellet smoking is super easy compared to wood smokers it still requires attention and respect. Doing things while detracted is never a good idea, especially if it involves fire.
6 – I learned that my chicken rub still tastes great if I have to toss it on the propane grill instead of the smoker!
by Alaninabox
Dining and Cooking